[Google+ Cheat Sheet] What Is Google Plus and How to Properly Use It?

What Is Google Plus?

Google+ is a network Google launched on June 28, 2011 with its first private beta. The project got started under Vic Gundotra who was the senior vice president of social marketing at Google. Google plus was designed to be a slightly different social network that included a new friendly management system, games and photos, a hangout section for chatting and more.

The network was designed for individuals and businesses and it became one of the fastest growing at the time. When Google plus first got started it was as a major competitor to Twitter and Facebook. Today Google plus has over 111 million active profiles around the world. With so many individuals using Google plus, there are also a very large number of marketers and companies around the world that utilize it to grow their businesses.

Google Plus Cheat Sheet

Using Google Plus for Business

Google plus allows businesses to easily connect with their customers and with other businesses through the chat function and improve their local search engine results.

Google plus pages now offer support through Google My Business which is a platform that can make it far easier for users to search through maps and local search engine results in order to find relevant information on businesses which are located close by to them.

Creating a Google Plus Business Page

The process of creating a Google plus business page is actually much easier than many businesses may think. To begin a business owner just needs to have an accessible Gmail account. They can even start one specifically for their business for managing the page.

After that they can head over to the google plus create page and follow through with the wizard in order to classify the business category, website or product.

After the page is been classified, a business owner can then go about customizing the page and then promoting that page to improve their search engine visibility. Including items like a company logo and other branded elements are a sure way to improve the listing’s brand recognition.

Here Are Some Key Features That Google+ Offers

Personal Profile

As soon as you sign up for Google plus account data will be automatically imported from your Gmail account to you Google plus profile. You can add in items like your profile photo, introduction, occupation information, nicknames and other details about yourself that can also improve your search visibility. Google plus also offers the chance for you to permanently link other pages to your profile page such as your LinkedIn, facebook, twitter and or even a personal website.

Circles

Circles is a format for friend and contact classification that is only available on Google plus. Whenever you connect with someone new you can add them into their own specific circles to create your own friend groups or trending business groups. Dragging and dropping friends from one circle to another is very easy and you have control to consistently edit what you shared take each one of these circles. The circle feature helps to keep the entire social network more organized and helps to ensure that users have more control over what their connections can see.

Sharining Content

The Google plus stream is very different from newsfeeds on other social media websites. Instead of liking posts on Google plus there’s a +1 post which can boost a post’s notoriety across the network and in search engine rankings. Users can also share the same post to specific circles. The system is extremely intuitive and automatically detects the type of content that you are sharing across Google plus to let you pick out the ideal thumbnail and sharing method for that content.

Hangouts

Hangouts is a feature available on Google plus which is very different from other networks. It works like group chat except you can send out a google hangout to everyone in a given circle or even just connect one-on-one with someone within your network. Up to 10 people at a time can all share the same hangout over video chat. Content can be easily shared through hangouts as well and everyone can share photos, watch YouTube videos together and more.

Photos

Google plus comes with build in Picasa support so users can easily post fully built albums as well as edit the way that they are displayed in slideshows. Users can even edit their photos directly on use google plus through a browser-based editor. Many users on mobile can even set images to auto upload to certain albums or to their photo page shortly after they are captured. Picasa comes with a wealth of tools on its own and the integration with Google plus makes it a much better platform for sharing photos and keeping rights to photos.

Search and Sparks

As Google is first and foremost a search engine, the search features on Google plus are also quite in depth. Every search that is completed across Google plus can detail: people, places and content as well as integrate sparks which are new and trending news content that can be featured across the Google plus homepage and the search engine itself. Having access to all of this trending data and the ability to have a much more in-depth search over the social network, offers ample help for marketers in seeking trends in demographics.

Privacy

The privacy features on Google plus are available on the settings tab and with the number of options available Google is showing that they are ready to be trusted with a selection of social data. Google takeout allows users to easily download stream posts, profile data and photos at any time for a complete backup and through the circles feature and privacy settings, users can keep their information safeguarded like never before.

Mobile Support

Google plus is also widely available with many of its features on mobile devices. Through the google plus system, gmail users can access hangouts, post photos to their Google plus page from their mobile phone, message their circles, check in on training content and more, all from a mobile friendly application.